Little Steps Towards Personal Truth, pt. 1

"Kether is in Malkuth. And Malkuth is in Kether, but after another motherfucker." - William Clark

Before I explain to you what that means, I'd like to preface this deviation from my recent political meanderings with an apology. I fully realize that most people are put off by terminology like "occultism", "Hermeticism", or "magic(k)". I will try to remedy this prejudice by making all of my personal examples as clear and concise as I can. As with everything, your mileage may vary. Given that a personal foray into the murky realms of Western Esotericism, alternative psychology, and general semantics is more in keeping with the general workflow of this site than others, it isn't entirely out of place. But I am fully aware of the risk this poses to the overall sociopolitical agenda I have been working towards in the last few months. I could potentially alienate people from me by talking about this. The tendency for the overwhelming amount of humanity is to fear that which they do not understand, and that is unavoidable. There is, as the theologist Alan Watts once argued, a strong societal taboo against knowing one's self.

So be it.

I am a magician. I have been for at least a decade now. I will be coming up on my 26th birthday in 2013. I have been formally crashing my way through the harrowing, awe inspiring and sometimes frustrating world of the occult since I was 16 years old. It is a rewarding path, and I have found it to be ultimately responsible for jumpstarting much of my personal growth as an individual. When I look back on the larval state of my entire being at that tender young age, some of the stupid blunders and mistakes I have made (and often continue to make) are greatly humbling. I owe much of the progress I have made from a clueless, morbidly self-obsessed and disaffected suburban kid into a self-actualized creative person to the serious work I have done with self-integration and individuation: A four-fold process of personal evolution that is psychological, spiritual, physical and psychic in nature. In addition to this, I have come to learn that the universe itself provides the initiatory catalysts, the teachers, and the guides that we need. But only when we are ready for it. "Ask, and ye shall receive. Seek, and ye shall find." The teacher comes when the student is ready.

Magical thinking: mythologizing our daily lives

(This is a follow up to my post on Magical Thinking.) 

The meaning-attribution process is primarily automatic or subconscious, but also not entirely outside our influence. Meaning isn't attributed consciously. Yet, at some point, on some level, we have to choose what the pieces of our personal history mean. There are many ways that this plays into our lives. In cases of clinical depression, for instance, there is some evidence that the thought processes that produce depression are habitual. It is likely, if not absolutely certain, that at some point the "pathways" were conscious, or at least they lay closer to the surface, like young roots that have yet to fully embed themselves in anything other than topsoil.